Confidence when you least expected it

This week I went wedding dress shopping with my brother-in-law’s fiancée, Jess. (I’ve mentioned her before; I think I forgot to mention that they got engaged a couple weeks ago.) We got to the store and the sales lady asked Jess what size she was. Jess replied that at the other store she’d been to, she was a size [small number].

Let me take a step back for a moment. I had never really had body issues—until I had Hayden. And despite my trips to the gym (which haven’t been quite as consistent lately because of all the family visiting), and despite my family telling me how much skinnier I look since I was married almost three years ago (maybe 10 pounds), I still occasionally feel ‘fat.’ (Don’t we all?) For example, last Saturday, I was wearing the smallest size of pants I had since high school, and I looked down at my stomach and felt fat (even though I’ve probably always had a little bit of a tummy).

So, Jess says she wears a [small number]. Mind you, I don’t shop for clothes nearly often enough to have any idea what size dress I wear, but if I’d been pressed, I would have guessed probably double what she said. While Jess is quite thin (she looked awesome in all of the dresses!), putting a number on her somehow made her seem even smaller.

I have never, ever felt like a ‘small’ person. I guess it’s inaccurate to say that I never had body issues before I had a baby—I have height issues. I’m not even that tall (maybe 5’8″). But because I’m above average height, I sometimes feel like I’m anything but cute and delicate. And [small number] sounds like a cute and delicate number.

Mostly, I was too busy wrangling Hayden and photographing Jess to wallow in self pity, but I held onto the initial twinge for the next couple hours as she tried on dresses and debated which one to choose.

Just before we left, she and I were discussing one final concern. I was telling her what I did with my dress in that situation, and in visible relief, she said, “And we’re about the same size, right?”

We stood back to back to check it out. Yep.

So much for my self-image problem. Today after I went to the gym, I had graham crackers for breakfast—with rainbow chip frosting. Is being incapable of eating healthy an eating disorder?